


Held Back by the Deepened Nail

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_bitesized, Episode: s05e21 Two Minutes to Midnight, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heaven depends on happy memories. Dean promised Sam he'd make some.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Held Back by the Deepened Nail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shanaqui (edenbound)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/gifts).



> Title from Metallica's "The God That Failed" (trust you gave, a child to save, left you cold and him in grave).

I broke my promise, Sammy. I'm sorry. I just. I couldn't take it anymore, you know? Or maybe you don't know. You made it six months on your own when Gabriel was fucking with you. I couldn't even get through a week.

So. Michael clearly doesn't think this is over. Good to know, I guess. This is gonna suck.

I looked up the history of that convent in Ilchester. Stole the police records, too. I don't know how much of that was an important part of the ritual and how much was just Azazel amusing himself and making sure his meatsuit was the only surviving witness. I don't much care either. And, hey, you and me never gonna see each other again, one of us in hell, me getting disemboweled and getting right back up like it never happened, it's not exactly unfamiliar, you know?

I don't know if it worked. I'm pretty sure it didn't work the same way as Azazel's ritual, because it looks like that involved Lucifer possessing the corpse of the last nun standing, sort of, and me being alive shorted that out. Probably just as well. We agreed I wouldn't try to pull you out, too big a risk he'd get out too, and I guess you'd say that applies to talking too. But I think it worked well enough that you can hear me. I hope it did.

You asked me, before, how I survived. I told you I thought of you. Tried to picture what you were doing, how you were getting by. I don't know what I would've done for the chance to hear it straight from you, but...

I never told you why I finally picked up Alastair's knife. Actually I flat out lied about it. I told you it took thirty years for me to stop telling him to fuck off, and that was the same day I started torturing people. Truth is I ran out of the strength to fight him maybe twenty years in. I figured there wasn't any way you'd lived till forty-five, so you were safe in heaven and there wasn't any reason to keep trying not to become a demon. Of course I didn't know for you it was still July.

A month to a decade. Three days to a year. I spent six days trying to figure out how to live without you and another week bouncing between heaven and here. So it's been about four and a half years for you. That's not that much longer than you spent at Stanford.

I can't just sit here and babble at you all day every day. You told me I'm not allowed to mope for the rest of my life. So I'm gonna set up a new identity, somebody that's never done anything worse than a speeding ticket. As soon as I know what I'm gonna do with my new life, I'll tell you. I'll be here every day. Every few months for you. So you just hang in there, Sammy. You keep fighting. We'll get through this. You and me.

I can't remember if I ever said it in so many words. I should have. I know you know it, and I'm not gonna talk myself out of saying it, I swear. So. I love you, Sammy. Always did. Always will.

* * *

BROKEN IS THE PROMISE, BETRAYAL, BETRAYAL, YEAH!

Sorry, Sam. It's just been... it's been one of those days.

You hold on, Sammy. You fight him. I miss you. I love you. Always did. Always will.

* * *

Sam, are you sure you never spent any time in Detroit the summer you were twenty? You positive you never fucked a chick name of Janet Marsden?

Shaniqua left today.

LaShaun locked himself in his room. Hasn't come out for food yet, but he's been talking to me. Okay, telling me to leave him alone, I'm not their dad which is good because I'd be a horrible one as proven by Shaniqua left, but that's at least healthier than me not talking for three months after you left for Stanford, right? And I know he's got a food stash up there. He'll come out when it's gone.

Where did I go wrong with her, Sammy? Well. Same places I went wrong with you, I guess. She's so much like you, it scares me. She's not as fucked up, though. Neither of them are. Amazing what a stable home address—eavesdropping is a useful skill, LaShaun Jackson Marsden, but it's useless if people can hear you.

Did I ever tell you two why I asked for siblings who wanted to stay together but who were making enough trouble the system didn't want to keep you together? I used to have brothers. Littler one was Adam. This picture's him and his mom. I barely knew him, never met his mom, never got a chance to punch my dad for not telling us about him or him about us, but he's still my family. He got mixed up in some shit a while back—shit named Michael, and I'm gonna kill the son of a bitch first chance I get—anyway. I hope he's all right.

My other brother, though. Sam. There was just Dad and Sammy and me. Mostly just Sammy and me. Three scariest letters in the world when we were your age, CPS. Sammy was pretty much all I had for a long time. This is him with his girl, Jess. He met her at college. Stanford. He was gonna be a lawyer, argue in front of the Supreme Court, defend justice and freedom and apple pie. I don't think I ever told him how proud I was when I found out he was going. I couldn't tell him before he left, because I didn't want him to go. I wish he'd never left. But he needed to leave, needed to be out fighting the good fight. He couldn't have lived with himself if he'd stayed. I just...

I miss him, you know? I miss that face he made when I played my music loud, and how he always banged his head when he was driving a car that wasn't mine, and the way he'd call me a jerk and I knew he was saying he loved me and I'd call him a bitch and he knew I was saying I love him. Always did, always will.

Yeah, I wish you could meet him too. It's not gonna happen. People don't just walk out of hell because other people want them to. Didn't I just say he was a lawyer? Where do you think lawyers _go_ when they die?

I think she'll be back, Shaun. Semper fidelis, right? Always faithful. She knew that years ago. That's why she wanted a foster home that wanted you both.

* * *

Polls just closed, Sam. Shaniqua won. Our Shaniqua. Senator Samantha Shaniqua Marsden Campbell. She did it. She really did it, Sammy. Our Shaniqua, can you believe it? She's gonna save the world just like she told me she would. Not like we did, but then she didn't break the world either. I think her way's better.

She's probably gonna want her dad there for her acceptance speech, so I'm gonna go join the party. Tell you all about it when I get back. Gotta make sure you get your vicarious thrills, right?

Love you, Sammy. Always did, always will.

* * *

Guess I'm a hundred today. You'd be fifty-six. I imagine the import of the date has slipped you by considering you passed forty-five thousand a while back. I guess you're still fighting him. He hasn't busted back out yet. You must be winning.

That one guy in Greek myth, what was his name? Immortal life without eternal youth. And meanwhile you will always be young and pretty. Fuck, if I could just see you. I wouldn't even tease you about the girly hair. Promise.

I love you. I miss you. Always did. Always will.

Man, remember when we thought I'd never see thirty? Those were the _days_.


End file.
